Catalytic Agent

One afternoon early last October a happy, jaunty Irishman, whose
bantam-sized body houses an almost inhuman store of nervous energy,
strolled into his four-room apartment in Washington's elegant Shoreham
Hotel. With sly casualness, fully aware of the dramatics of the
occasion, he said to his wife: "Well, Maude, I've just given up my
job." The job was that of Associate Justice of the Supreme
Courtwhich had seemed, 16 months before, like the pinnacle of
achievement to a man born on the wrong end of famed, aristocratic King
Street in Charleston,...